Culure Shock

When I decided to come to China, I knew that I would have to learn to be accepting to a different culture and a different method behind doing things.  However, I didn’t realize how difficult this might be.  Let me explain.  I have become very close to our two Chinese assistants (Pat and Candy).  I work with these lovely girls everyday, and they are always so patient and understanding with me.  They also are willing to share any and every aspect of their culture, if I am willing to learn.  These are the girls that have made China a home for me.  They are the ones that show their love and care for me with simple things such as grabbing my arm when we cross the street to make sure I stay safe. 

We have plenty of down time between our classes for us to talk and discuss things.  I knew the Chinese girls made considerably lower wages than the foreign instructors, but I was curious to find out exactly how much lower.  So, once I felt comfortable enough, I simply asked what their wages were.  These girls make only 15% of what I make in one month.  Along with that, I have my rent paid and they don’t.  Also, Pat has a two hour bus ride for a commute every day to work.  And to top it off, they only have one day for their weekend.  This was very hard to accept after I have seen that they work just as hard as we do, and could probably teach the classes better than we can, because they have put so much practice into it.

To make things even more difficult, I found out another little piece of the puzzle.  Come to find out, if anything goes wrong in our class and the parents bring it up to administration, it is automatically considered our assistants fault.  For example, we forgot to put a book in our story bag one day and only the assistants were talked to about this.  Nothing was ever said to either of us foreign instructors. 

We come to work thirty minutes early, so that we can add those thirty minutes to our lunch break.  In China, they love to take a thirty-minute nap after lunch.  However, typically we won’t leave for lunch right at twelve if there are still kids around.  We will play with them until they leave or until a little after twelve at times.  One day, our assistants were taking a nap and they slept until 1:35 instead of 1:30.  The manager over all the instructors came up and fussed at them and told them their pay would be cut for doing this.  When the girls told me, I said did you explain that every day you play with the kids well into your lunch break?  They started giggling and said they simply don’t have the courage to do this.  They also told me that if they were to say something, their pay would be cut even more or they could possibly lose their jobs all together. 

This all was very hard for me to take in and not say something about it all.  I have grown very close to these girls, and it hurts to know they are being treated unfairly.  However, I had to remind myself that I can’t change these things.  It is not my place to even try.  I have to remember that I am here to experience the culture, and this is simply part of it.